Let’s hear it for kids!

Without a doubt, juvenile delinquency is a serious problem in our society today, and the actions of bad kids regularly make the news. But, I contend that kids overall are not delinquents and often we underestimate them and what they can achieve.

So, today let’s hear it for some kids making news for the right reasons.

Last week, while I was cruising cyberspace in search of interesting stories, two news reports on a TV station in Cincinnati caught my attention. Today, I want to share them.

Henry Kestner, 8, a third-grader whose family lives in suburban Cincinnati, recently had a cancerous tumor removed and is now undergoing chemotherapy treatment. As you know, one side effect is that the patient suffers hair loss and goes bald. That happened to Henry, but he didn’t go bald alone.

It’s time for Henry to return to school, and classmates at his elementary school decided that the way to support Henry was to go bald with him. So, last Thursday they gathered at a barbershop and one by one climbed into the barber chair to go bald like Henry.

When each one took a seat, he said, “Give me The Henry.” I don’t know how many received The Henry, but it was a bunch. Kids were all over the place, all either waiting to get buzzed or were already buzzed and watching others lose their hair. I even saw a couple of grown men in the group; perhaps, they were teachers at the school.

In addition to having their locks shorn, Henry’s friends were wearing bracelets that read, “No one fights alone.”

Surrounded by friends, bald Henry smiled and talked with a reporter, saying that when he returns to class this week “it’ll be me and tons of other people with their hair gone.”

Thankfully, the hair is expected to grow back on all those bald heads, including Henry’s.

In the Ft. Mitchell area of greater Cincinnati, a different type of situation occurred. A 13-year-old who says he would like to be a police investigator when he grows up played a key role in helping the local cops in an investigation on a series of burglaries.

Collin Cruickshank was playing catch recently with some kids in his housing area when an errant throw resulted in a ball rolling near the trash dumpster. As he was retrieving the ball, he noticed a wadded up piece of paper on the concrete. He picked it up and saw it was receipt—a pawn shop receipt for a necklace and another item stolen from his home in a recent burglary.

He quickly headed to his house, ignoring an order from a neighbor to give him the paper. Closing the door behind him, Collin told his mother to look at what he had found. She recognized the necklace described on the receipt as one that had been stolen from her. She called police.

The family was able to identify the stolen items, and police tracked down the two people who had pawned the items. They were neighbors and one was the man who had told Collin to give him the receipt. Police connected the two people to other burglaries committed in the last two or three months, and the two have been arrested in connection this series of burglaries.

Collin’s mom said he has always been an alert and curious person and she thinks people in their area view him as a hero. Collin seemed pleased to have helped solve the case and told a reporter he would like to be a police investigator when he grows up.

He seems to have a start in that direction.